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Abstract

To improve the quality as well as yield in tea and tea products, the Tea Organization of Iran has initiated several under-pressure irrigation groups in Gilan Province. The main objective in this paper is to identify the effective factors in attracting tea farmers into under pressure irrigation groups in Lahijan County. The study was conducted in the framework of a survey research. The population of the research included tea farmers who were either members or non-members in Self-Help Groups of under-pressure irrigation in Lahijan, out of whom 135 were selected as representative sample, through multistage sampling procedure. Data were collected through filling up to questionnaires. For analyzing the collected data, apart from descriptive statistics, analytical methods, namely correlation coefficients, discriminant analysis, factor analysis and path analysis were employed. Stepwise discriminant analysis, produced a function with such variables as attending to extension courses, number of visits to gardens equipped with under-pressures irrigation system, belief in consultation, and the size of tea gardens, which to a large extent determined the difference between the two groups of tea farmers. Also, by using factor analysis, variables were summarized into five factors viz., personal, organizational, climatic, economic and social. The organizational factor of 17% value plays the main role in explaining the variance in the dependent variable. The results in path analysis also indicated that the organizational factor with a 0.611 path coefficient was the most effective factor for describing the dependent variable.

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